T-R PHOTO BY RUBY F. MCALLISTER Members of the Tama County Board of Adjustment including, left to right, Todd Sebesta, Mike Seda, Nancy Yuska, and Nikki Novak (Kurtis Kelley was attending by phone), pictured during the board’s Sept. 4 meeting in Toledo. As part of the short meeting, board members, with their legal counsel present, discussed a resolution pertaining to both the zoning certificates being surrendered on Aug. 21 by Salt Creek Wind LLC and a recent appeal of those certificates made by rural Traer resident Bev Espenscheid.

TOLEDO — It seems turbulence has yet again hit the highly controversial Salt Creek Wind project.

For at least 15 years, a commercial wind energy project going by the name of Salt Creek Wind has been in some stage of development in central Tama County by either Wind Capital Group (prior to 2019) or by the more recent Conifer Power Company.

But in the wake of a Tama County Board of Adjustment meeting held last week Wednesday, Sept. 4, at the administration building, the status of that $300 million project appears up in the air. During the meeting, it was revealed that on Aug. 21, 2024, Tama County Zoning Administrator Bob Vokoun received written correspondence from Salt Creek Wind LLC surrendering 60 county zoning certificates and withdrawing any requests related to said certificates.

A zoning certificate, according to attorney Steve Leidinger (who acted as legal counsel for the board during the meeting), is akin to a building permit.

As it stands today, the Salt Creek Wind project – which has been in development since roughly 2019 by Conifer Power on behalf of an entity registered in Wilmington, Del. and known as Salt Creek Wind LLC – still holds at least 60 conditional use permits (CUPs), dating back to Dec. of 2020, to construct wind turbines in Tama County.

As far as Vokoun is concerned, those CUPs remain valid.

“I’m not sure if the CUPs expire or not. I’ve been advised by the attorneys that [the CUPs] are still valid,” Vokoun told the newspaper following the meeting. “If [Salt Creek] wants to build, they have to reapply [for the zoning certificates].”

“CUPs are the approval to place wind turbines on the sites,” Leidinger said. “In my opinion, they are still in place. The CUP came first and that’s basically the overarching approval of a wind turbine at those locations.”

When asked if they knew why Salt Creek Wind had surrendered the zoning certificates, both Leidinger and Vokoun said they did not know.

“The applicant for one reason or another determined to surrender those certificates,” Leidinger said.

“They just surrendered their certificates. I don’t know why,” Vokoun added.

The newspaper reached out to both Eric and Robert Bergstrom, Salt Creek Wind’s developers, for comment regarding the status of the project in Tama County. As of press time, neither had responded to the newspaper’s inquiries.

The newspaper also reached out to Conifer Power directly as well as to Bechtel Corporation, which Robert Bergstrom in 2022 characterized as Salt Creek Wind’s “deep pocket.” Neither company had responded as of press time.

The way back machine

The Salt Creek Wind project has been in development since at least 2009. During a town hall held by Zoom and sponsored by Salt Creek Wind LLC in June of 2022, Robert Bergstrom and his son Eric Bergstrom, along with Tom Swierczewski – who at the time was working for Conifer Power as an energy developer focusing on the Tama County project – gave a presentation on the history of the project.

As part of his introductory remarks, Eric Bergstrom said he had been working on Salt Creek Wind “really exclusively since 2019,” while Bob Bergstrom described himself as the group’s leader.

“I’ve been around this area (renewables) for quite a period of time,” Bob Bergstrom said. “Try to be a little humble, but I’ve led some teams that have been very successful. … I’m old enough that I actually built the very first wind farms in North Dakota, South Dakota, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Puerto Rico, the second in Texas, the second in Illinois, and a bunch in Colorado.”

He continued.

“So this is not my first, as the cliche goes, this is not my first rodeo. I’ve built more than 30 of these different projects across the nation and so … I think I’ve got the experience to help out the fine folks in Tama County. We’re really very excited to be [here].”

Swierczewski, for his part, said he was new to Conifer Power and had been in Iowa for about three years at that point.

“Wind projects are economic engines for their host communities,” Swierczewski said. “And real success stories for rural Iowa. Salt Creek Wind is gonna be no different for Tama County.”

Bob Bergstrom then dove into the stunted history of the Salt Creek Wind project, which he said began “sometime in 2009.”

“There [were] like 100 of them in this [presentation] room,” Bob Bergstrom said of the initial 2009 presentation to Tama County landowners. “And when the developer was done with the presentation, landowners all started talking amongst themselves – recognized they knew very little about wind and they needed to form a group. And they needed to get smart [quickly]. So they passed a hat and they formed Tama County Landowners Association, and there [were] 75 or so people in that.”

He said the group hired a lawyer and subsequently appointed six people – the ‘Big Six,’ as they have since been coined – to negotiate with a wind energy developer. Ultimately, the Tama County Landowners Association chose Wind Capital Group, which ended up leasing approximately 30,000 acres from about 170 landowners. But before the project could even get to the permitting stage, it fell apart.

“In 2019, we really kicked the development off again,” Eric Bergstrom said. “We reengaged with that steering committee … and began to update the lease.”

Over the course of 2020, the new Salt Creek Wind project by Conifer Power started signing leases with landowners and as a result of those negotiations, the entire project encompassed 35,000 acres leased with 230 to 240 people. For the Phase 1 project, that includes 170 people and about 25,000 acres secured, according to Eric Bergstrom.

That portion of the project – Phase I – was slated to begin construction in April or May of 2023, he further said, and reach the operational stage by the end of 2023.

As of press time, Conifer Power/Salt Creek Wind LLC has not constructed a single wind turbine in Tama County.

Knebel lawsuit

While the reason behind Salt Creek Wind’s latest move remains unclear, a lawsuit filed nearly two years ago lifts the fog surrounding the issue – at least partially.

Back in early January of 2023, Heather Knebel, a rural Traer resident and the Republican nominee for Tama County Supervisor District 3, filed a civil lawsuit against the Tama County Board of Adjustment and then Tama County Zoning Administrator Todd Apfel. She was appealing a decision made by Apfel on June 22, 2022, to approve 56 zoning certificates submitted by Salt Creek Wind while also granting the company an extension of 26 additional months to commence construction.

According to court documents, Knebel – who lives with her family in the Salt Creek Wind project’s footprint adjacent to two proposed wind turbine sites – was only made aware on Oct. 13, 2022, that the zoning certificates had been issued after receiving written information she requested from the county auditor’s office and Apfel. By that time, Knebel contends, the 30-day appeal window to the county’s board of adjustment had passed.

In her lawsuit, Knebel said zoning certificates usually expire within 90 days unless there has been construction progress. Time extensions, she said, are allowed but not the rule.

“Apfel’s decision to extend the zoning certificates unreasonably favors Salt Creek to the detriment of the County and its residents,” Knebel wrote in her original petition. “Extensions of zoning certificates must be applied consistently amongst property owners. … The extension in this case is unreasonable and wholly unsupported by the circumstances.”

Using the 26 month extension, construction on the Salt Creek Wind project should have commenced by Aug. 13, 2024, or Aug. 22, 2024, according to Knebel. There is ongoing ambiguity as to when exactly Apfel issued the zoning certificates.

“Construction pursuant to these Zoning Certificates has not commenced as of today,” Knebel wrote in court documents filed on Aug. 27, 2024, as part of her voluntary dismissal of the lawsuit. “However, because the Zoning Certificates have expired on their own accord with the passage of time, there are no Zoning Certificates to revoke and this case is now moot.”

Knebel’s lawsuit also took issue with alleged discrepancies she found between the CUPs and the zoning certificates including incorrect parcel numbers. She also said the zoning certificates failed to identify the specific height of the proposed structures as required.

She went one step further, charging that the CUPs never should have been issued back in 2020 to begin with as the permits were approved for cropland that was currently in production — a fact that Knebel contends is against Tama County’s own wind energy conversion system ordinance.

“All 2638.24 acres in the CUPs were and remain in active row crop production (with exception of a few small excavation sites),” Knebel wrote in her original 2023 petition.

While Knebel dismissed her lawsuit voluntarily last month, the CUPs are still in place albeit now without the requisite zoning certificates.

Back in 2022 during Salt Creek Wind’s town hall, Bob Bergstrom expounded on ‘Why Tama County?’ when it comes to wind energy development. He explained that to construct a successful wind project, “four big things” are necessary.

“You got to have a wind resource – we do; we’ve measured the wind, it’s a proven wind resource. … You got to have landowners. Landowners that are ready, willing, and able to lease their land for wind turbines. … You’ve got to have an energy connection. … Large power lines … like the lines along (Highway) 63 … That’s your farm to market road. You need to be able to sell those electrons to the grid. … And the last thing you need is [a] market,” he said. “So wind, land, interconnection, and a market.”

He quite possibly should have added a fifth requirement – valid zoning certificates.